


All the titles of good fellowship

by Lilliburlero



Category: Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare
Genre: Anachronism, Bed Trick, Duelling, Hand Jobs, Homophobic Language, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Minor Character(s), Non-Graphic Violence, Not Hearing the Chimes at Midnight, Oral Sex, Origin Story, Past Fic, Racism, Theatre, crossover character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:32:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the Windmill in Saint George's Field?' ―<i>The second part of Henry IV</i>, Act III, scene ii. </p><p>Being the true & unvarnisht historie thereof, presented with the conceits of Skoggins crack'd head &c.</p><p>*</p><p>Advisory: canon-typical misogyny and sexism; racism; references to sex work; internalized homophobia, period-typical homophobic language; guilt about sexuality; mention of corporal punishment; comic violence, some blood; mention of suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the titles of good fellowship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



‘Thanks, everybody,’ sighed John Doit, massaging his temples and wincing. Casting the Clement's Inn Yuletide mummery largely on the grounds of preferred pseudonym at the Mile End archery competitions had not, on reflection, been a wholly successful artistic decision. On the other hand, he had not been given a lot of choice in the matter, and it probably counted as a success that he had managed to entreat one of them into the heroine’s petticoats and another into the grey hobby-horse costume they had expropriated from the Inn’s Welshmen and loosely adapted to resemble a monster. ‘I’m even beginning,’ he continued, ‘to extend the flimsy shadow of an intimation of a hope it might not be a complete massacre by Holy Innocents’ Day.’

He paused for response. The actors, hunched and slumped on the piles of straw that marked out their stage, stared back mulishly. The ass with which they shared their tumbledown rehearsal room, whose vigorous courtship of Harry Surecard in his Questing Beast outfit had cost them a half-hour of precious daylight that morning, lifted its tail and offered comment more eloquent than any of the shorthand notes scratched on John’s wax tablet. It was getting too dark to read, anyway. The sky was ironclad and sleet had begun to patter under the broken panels of the barn door. 

‘Bugger this,’ John said. ‘Let’s go to the pub. I’ll give you your notes there,’ he added hopefully, knowing that his dramaturgical expertise (his mother’s father, a tanner, had once enacted Lucifer at Chester) was likely to be carried away on the spume of strong ale. 

‘To the Windmill?’ quavered Robert Shallow. 

‘Where else? It’s closest, and they expect our custom in return for the loan of this place.’ The Revels Committee was determined that this year’s play should be both properly rehearsed and its content a surprise to the audience: this was impossible to achieve within the Inn, or less than a mile and half’s radius from it, hence the arrangement with the landlady of the Windmill, where a few of them were regulars. 

‘Oughtn’t we―someone―I mean, I could go back to Clement's Inn with the cloakbags and props―’ 

John would have let him, but George Barr, their homicidally cheerful Palomides, flung an arm about Shallow’s bony, drooping shoulders. 

‘Courage, Sir Dagonet! She only does it to show she likes you, you know.’ This was a lie and everyone knew it. No-one could mistake for flirtatious raillery the frank and unshakeable antipathy borne by the hostess of the Windmill to Robert Shallow. And he, his friends believed, was miserably in thrall to her disdainful and comely person. 

The ass showed its gums and brayed something which the actors decided to take as encouragement to depart. They took off their more valuable items of apparel and stowed them in the cloakbags, retaining the grey loosely-knitted coats that simulated mail. Will Squele complained bitterly that he did not possess one of these itchy yet undeniably warm garments: Francis Pickbone cordially reminded him that he would be prancing in a kirtle before the blazing Yule log in the Great Hall of Clement’s while the rest of them fretted and sweated as if with St Anthony’s fire, and thus the princess Isolde should stop her squeaky gob if she didn’t want Sir Tristan’s ham fist in it. 

The hedged, rustic path, beginning among the outbuildings constructed from the collapsed windmill that gave the hostelry to which they belonged its name, acquired within a few hundred yards a definitively urban character. A wattle fence grew out of the ditch on one side, middens rose on the other. A scurvy cur sidled under the former on its way to the latter. Underfoot, unpredictable dints and puddles gave way to deep ruts flanking a central belt of nauseous filth. Soon they were in a street overhung with dwellings, dense with alehouses and shops. People clumped about in pattens, and their tongues ran click, click upon them too. Shutters and doors banged, street-sellers discounted the last of their wares and linkboys began to tout for trade as dusk fell, apprentices and girls streeled banter from upper windows. 

The Windmill was a big, florid establishment, mildly self-conscious with the knowledge that its clients included almost as many bona fide travellers as bona robas’ punters. Whether they described it as like a warren or a cavern probably depended on how much of its good strong ale, decent sack or lousy canary they had consumed. A large public bar-room and a smaller dining parlour flanked the entrance archway, to the west and east respectively, while behind the bar was a miniature maze of withdrawing chambers, privacy dependent on purse, and beyond that the courtyard, stables and jakes. The long kitchen stretched back behind the parlour, ending in pantries and a lean-to scullery. Of upstairs, perhaps only the hostess and the more experienced of her servants could say more than that there were bedchambers, definitely bedchambers, and thus the house relied heavily on drunkards' unlikely but unerring sense of direction for the modicum of good order which generally obtained overnight. Some system was supposed to divide these upper rooms into those that might accommodate worthy merchants and weary pilgrims for a whole night’s rest, and those that might be leased for a shorter term and less tranquility. Nobody but the hostess knew what _that_ was, and it certainly didn’t work. 

Business that afternoon was only middling. In the tap-room, Mistress Nightwork was encouraging some glum mercantile company in rusty frieze gowns to spend more of their profits by retiring to a private room with pretty Maud and Avice, who had a nice personality, to attend them; it looked to be dull, unrewarding labour, for she jumped up to greet the Knights of the Round Table, bestowing a smile even upon Robert. 

‘Called to the bar so soon, boys? And are these the drab clothes you must wear?’ Arms open, she advanced upon John, who stood on tiptoe to kiss her cheek. 

‘No indeed, for it is long before we will even be brought to the utter bar, wherefore we must be struck dumb,’ he said, adding on a note of inspiration, ‘by your beauty.’ The others sketched bows. They generally left this sort of stuff to Doit: he seemed to enjoy it and it sometimes brought them a round on the house. They shuffled their feet, hoping he wouldn’t get carried away and attempt a quibble on ‘drab’, which if mishandled could see them back in the street with not a drop taken. But before he could say more a youthful voice sounded out of a dark corner, a man’s voice indeed, broken and settled; though still as carrying as a boy chorister’s not pure as one, but lazy with indulgence of every sort and blurred about the edges with wine. 

‘Jane, _dar_ ling. Are not these Clement's men, that they bring their own Barr with them, and a low Barr although he is a broad, and far abroad, for certain no man can grow as black as he under our pale English sun, and being of Clement’s, once they are brought to utter, if they are of good counsel, they are in point of fact inner, that is to say of the Inner Temple, and if a body is a temple I wager one or two of them will be in a body before the night is out, for this is a temple of Venus, and vinous liquors are served, mightily served with licking Venus, and therefore it is proved, they are called to the utter bar and of the Inner Temple, and must,’ the voice rose to a peal, ‘not keep silence though they might one day be of the peace, though so must we all, for―’ 

Not a soul in the public room stirred, and every pair of eyes was turned towards the shadowy figure in the corner. He slammed the table with his fist, and to the accompaniment of rattling pewter, bawled, ‘we owe God one death, at least one, and that our own, therefore gentlemen, I would have your counsel, counsels― _I pray you speak_!’ 

He vaulted over the table and sauntered, swaying drunk, into the pool of light cast by the branch of candles overhead. Robert Shallow stifled an exclamation which sent a wracking shudder through the seventy-four skinny inches that intervened between his hair and his toes, for the speaker was the most beautiful boy, the most beautiful _creature_ he had ever seen. 

He was tall (which was to say he was two inches or more shorter than Robert) sturdy and well-knit of limb. He wore his honey-coloured curls at shoulder-length; his skin was clear of any ravage of adolescence, and the colour of pale sand, though now ruddy with drink. His light-brown eyes were wide and their black lashes a maiden’s envy, the nose slightly snub, the dusky-rose lips almost insultingly full. He was perhaps eighteen years of age; before he was three-and-twenty people would doubtless be moved to use such an adjective as _stout_ or _portly_ , but for now the body held snug in its close-cut brocade cotehardie was in its perfect bloom, the reckless, unstudied kind that is the lovelier because its lease is so short. He was lucky in the fashion that slung belts on the hip, for he would never be an eagle’s talon in the waist, and that for short skirts and tight hosen, because his thighs and arse were frankly delectable. 

‘Not all at once,’ he drawled. ‘Counsel will form an orderly queue at the bar.’ He misstepped and lurched heavily rightwards; Mistress Nightwork caught his elbow, whereupon he flung his left arm around her neck and drew her to him, planting a kiss on her lips. Scarlet with something that was not, the students saw to their astonishment, anger, she pushed him to his feet and said with a solicitude almost maternal, ‘Jack, hadn’t you better go and sleep it off?’ 

She snapped her fingers for a servant. ‘Dickon, take the gentleman page up to―up to his customary room.’ 

The lad gaped for a moment, then enlightenment dawned. ‘Which it is the one with the door into your ap-hart-ment, missus?’ 

‘You address me as ma’am, as in the parent you are sure of,’ said Mistress Nightwork crisply and not altogether unkindly. But in the same moment her eyes met Robert Shallow’s grey ones, the colour of embers that want but a gust under the grate to fling out a spark and set the house and street ablaze. Jane Nightwork had been perspicacious even in her cradle, and in the meantime she’d been around. But she had her blind spots, and one of these, concerning her position as queen regnant of the Windmill and the love her subjects bore her, caused her to misread that smouldering look, so ill-assorted with the lean, hangdog face on which it sat, and it to kindle an uncharacteristic malice in her. 

‘Yes, mum,’ Dickon said experimentally, extending a tiny, fraternal hand to the drunken page. He waved it graciously away. 

‘Oh, Jack, won’t you go?’ 

‘I will, dear Jane, I will, for I’m weary with hunting and fain would lie down, as the good old ballad has it, but not yet, I cannot, not yet, I’m engaged for supper and the man I'm to meet will be here soon―look,' he pointed to the door, 'there’s the groom with his horse, the roan that he won off the bishop―Jane, please? The king loves him well again and he might have a situation for me. And then I’ll take a nap, I swear.’ 

His look was as genuinely supplicant as it was confident of success, and gazing on it Robert Shallow lost his heart, never to win it back in his long life. 

‘Well―’ she said, and smiled suddenly, a privy, mirthless smile. ‘Very well. But do go up straight after you’ve eaten―promise me.’ 

‘I do.’ He caught up her hand and kissed it fervently, and with, ‘anon―sweet, dear, _honey_ Jane―’ dashed for the covered passage to the parlour, sending Francis Pickbone spinning out of his way. 

Sweet, dear, honey Jane paid her newest apprentice a stinging box on the ear and bid him take and stow the students’ bags and gowns―what did he mean by keeping customers waiting?―and swept out of the room. 

‘Who the _holy fuck_ was that?’ Francis wheezed indignantly as they followed the precariously-laden Dickon to a table. ‘Did you hear, George? He called you black.’ 

‘So I am black,’ George said, equably. ‘I thought you might have noticed.’ 

‘’S not the point, is it? It’s not polite, drawing attention. And―low,’ Francis produced triumphantly. ‘He said you were low.’ 

‘I’m five foot nine in my stockings, which is not so very―but it’s true that my father never married my mother, though he owned me his, fed, clothed and educated me, and pays me an allowance still. If I called out every man who ever called me a black bastard, I’d be forsworn, as well as full of holes and drained as a―a sponge.’ 

‘Sponges don’t drain, they suck up,’ Harry Surecard remarked with the deep conviction of pedantry. 

‘They drain when you wring them,’ George said merrily, with accompanying gesture. ‘So I’ll pick my battles, Frankie boy, and you pick your bones―here, drawer!’ 

‘How about splashing out?’ Will suggested. ‘Does the kitty run to sack, Hal?’ 

Harry, whom a less than foresighted electorate had named Revels Committee Treasurer, confirmed that it did. It certainly did not run to more sack, but they had that too, and capons in sauce, and anchovies and sack after. This had the expected effects upon volume and pitch of conversation, complexion, incidence of visits to the yard, dexterity, agility, amorousness, popularity with servants, truculence, quality of wit, perception of quality of wit, repetitiveness and regurgitation. And one most unexpected: that their hostess seemed to find Robert Shallow’s company tolerable―indeed more than that: she smiled and chaffed at his digressive anecdotes, complimented height―tall herself, she liked a man she could _look up to_ ―and slim physique, caressed his forearm and the back of his neck. 

Under the conditions best of all suited to avoiding eye contact, George offered tactful comment. ‘I was only sort of _saying_ it earlier, Rob, if you know what I mean. But I really think you might be in with a chance there.’ 

‘Any man with seven shillings is.’ 

‘She doesn’t do the―manual side any more. Though with old Nightwork in France―’ 

‘I didn’t mean it _literally_ , exactly.’ 

George, who rarely meant anything any other way―it was one of his charms―made a gentle interrogative noise. 

‘I mean,’ said Robert, aware that some bravado might be in order, ‘I’m not sure she’s quite my style―old, you know―’ 

‘―she can’t help that. And she’s only―twenty-eight, maybe. Bit of experience, it’s what you want, your first―sorry. But it is, isn’t it?’ 

Robert grunted, shook himself, tucked in his shirt and knotted his points. There was no answer to a question like that. George would think he had the hump, he thought as he stalked across the courtyard, and he didn’t, he really didn’t, it was just _complicated_. When he’d been at the grammar, it had been―almost normal. The town girls didn’t want schoolboys and old Pate left them no leisure or liberty anyway. But only almost: Robert had been uneasily aware that the privy embraces, the quick breathless friggings meant something to him that they did not to his companions. And after that embarrassing incident in Soper Lane last Michaelmas―he cringed to think how close he had come to real trouble―he had sworn off swiving. It was ridiculous. Next March he would have his majority. He should have grown out of it. 

He tried to get excited about women, and he was getting better at that, though when things came to a head it wasn’t ever soft tits and rounded bellies and swelling hips he thought of. He only blushed and stammered in the presence of Mistress Nightwork because she was horrible to him―but his mates had put a construction on it that served him well, and now she wasn’t being horrible any more, she was trim and flat-chested and with her husband away at the wars she wouldn’t want to risk getting with child, maybe she’d be grateful if he only―lips and hands were all the same, and the thighs under her shift were probably as wiry as the rest of her (few who saw it would forget her defeating that fat Cornishman at arm-wrestling) and he could think of― 

He thought of him. ‘Christ’s teeth,’ he muttered aloud, ‘Robert Shallow, you’re a damned liar. You lie to others, and you lie to yourself―oh, beg pardon!’ 

Girlishly, Jane Nightwork jumped the last stair and swung around the newel-post almost into his arms. Shaking and scarlet-faced, he steadied her, feeling the lean muscle under her tight, buttoned sleeves. 

‘Why, Master Shallow, you look quite out of your depth.’ 

‘I―’ dammit, he could do this. He’d even got a bit of a thrill, holding her arm like that. ‘I must needs swim, then. I’m told my breast stroke is creditable.’ This was not true in any sense. He had gone down to Carrant Brook with the other boys one summer, excitedly intending to learn, but had cut his foot on a stone before he even got in the water. Tom Silence had carried him home on his back. The foot had gone bad, and amputation was mentioned before his grandmama’s poultice drew the poison. He’d never had the heart or guts to try again. 

‘Dans le mitan du lit, la rivière est profonde.’ 

‘J’ai soif, alors, comme un cheval.’ His mouth _was_ dry. 

‘I have barrels and hogsheads at commandment, sir. Sometimes I take a fancy to give a friend something for nothing, too.’ She smiled; her eyes and mouth were cruel black half-moons in the lantern-light of the passageway. She beckoned and he lay his cheek close to hers. ‘After your friends have paid their reckoning, take a cup, and take your time over it. Then come―’ she tilted her head up the stairs, ‘west gallery, after the third door along there’s a short passage and a step, on the right there’s a door with a blackbird painted on it. Put out your light at the door.’ 

This suited him; he did not think to ask why, but she continued as if he had. ‘I swore to old Nightwork I’d not let a man see me naked in my chamber, nor exchange a word with any man who entered there. I keep my promises. Kiss me to show you do too.’ He did: a small, dry buss on the lips. 

His return was greeted with ribald cheers. Of course, George must have passed him and La Nightwork at the bottom of the stairs. The bill left purses too slack for any of the others to enjoy company, and it was late to cross the bridge, dusk was four hours and more gone. Their sudden sobering at these circumstances made Robert anxious too. But he couldn’t back out now, so he said his farewells. He called for strong ale and drank it too quickly; she had said to take his time. He stared at the foam evanescing in his pint pot―and glumly tried to work himself into some sort of excitement without thinking of the marvellous boy, succeeding at neither―God’s holy bones, why did life have to be so _difficult_? 

‘Mind if I―?’ 

A middle-aged man wearing good, plain, forest-green broadcloth joined him on the bench. His straight grey hair hung from a bald patch that was like, but was not, a tonsure, and he wore his smile upside-down in a long, stubbled jaw. 

‘Cheer up. Si secundum hominem ad bestias pugnavi Ephesi, quid mihi prodest, si mortui non resurgunt? Manducemus, et bibamus, cras enim moriemur.’ 

‘Nolite seduci,’ Robert replied. ‘It’s too late. I have been―and I’d rather go to the wild beasts.’ 

‘And I’m going to die tomorrow. We―ell. Maybe I’ll be lucky. The other fellow will have a worse hangover. But I’ve never been any hand at arms. Verse-making’s my line.’ 

‘What happened?’ 

‘Got into a quarrel. Impudent young fool: he’d been turned out of the Earl of Nottingham’s service and thought I might be able to help him back in. When I asked what was in it for me―meaning why the hell should I help a known scapegrace, association with whom could only harm my reputation―he produced a veritable tirade accusing me of venality, and I’m afraid I was provoked.’ 

That probably took a master in the art, Robert reflected, looking at the man’s alert, mild brown eyes and humorous mouth. 

‘I told him he could apologise or meet me at dawn tomorrow up on St George's Field, and he tried to lay hands on me, which really did it, as you can imagine. I can’t have accusations of corruption getting around. They would be believed. I’ve been a poor nobody, and now I’m not so poor and a good pal of the Comptroller of Customs for London Port. I've only just got back to court after an enforced holiday in the country for telling the King a few true things he didn't want to hear, and I'm unpopular with men who'd pounce on any rumour of bribe-taking.' He sighed. 'I say―I need a second. I gave my man the evening off. I don’t suppose you’d―?’ 

All the many reasons why not failed to strike him. ‘If I live the night. Robert Shallow, by the way.’ 

‘Henry Scogan. Buck up, Master Shallow. It’s _post_ you’re supposed to be _tristis_ , you know. But I know the sort. You loathe her really, but you can’t let her go. Rides like a wild mare, kisses like a lamprey―but turns on you like a basilisk after.’ 

‘Not exactly―maybe. Something like that. I mean, I don’t know. I really ought―’ 

‘Have a cup of canary with me.’ 

‘No―I―’ 

‘Fair enough. A bloke can have too much Dutch courage before an assault on the Low Countries, that’s for sure.’ 

‘The canary here’s puke-making, by the way―I wouldn’t.’ 

‘Thanks for the tip. On the morrow, then, Robert Shallow. Meet me at the back gate.’ 

‘Yes. Good night, Master Scogan.’ In the passage he fished a candle-end from his gown and lit it at the lantern hung over the door to the courtyard, took a deep breath and made his way upstairs. He wouldn’t _try_ to get lost, he thought, but if he had to retrace his steps more than once he might just say he had―but he couldn’t leave Scogan without a second, he thought, pretending that, and not his horror of traversing the dark narrow press of London Bridge alone on a December night, was his reason. And God’s nightgown, a woman wanted him. He didn’t want a woman, but it was still not to be sneezed at; it had never happened before―oof, there was the step. 

He held up his candle to the door on the right. Definitely a blackbird. A very unequivocal ousel. He blew out the flame before he could think better of it. It was done. _Iacta alea est._ He lifted the latch and ducking instinctively, entered. He opened his mouth to call, then remembered her vow not to speak. That was a strange thing to promise, he thought, like something in a geste―and there it was always for a trick. But people didn’t do that sort of thing in real life, it would never work, and anyway, it was hard to see how it mattered. He didn’t want any of Jane Nightwork’s girls any more or less than he did her own self. 

The room smelled sickly-sour, of drink and frowst. As his eyes adjusted he saw that there was another door: the only light in the room flickered from under the two of them. He thought, irrelevantly, of George’s good-natured acceptance of bastardy: that was the way to be, so honest that people couldn’t get at you. The bed loomed to his right, curtained. She was there―someone was there, he could hear breathing. Assuming a sort of reckless masterfulness that he certainly didn’t feel, he strode around it, dropping his gown from his shoulders, toeing the heels of his boots, clawing at the laces of his doublet. With one hand fumbling for his front points, he was suddenly struck by huge misgiving. He reached for the bed-curtain instead, and drew it. The grey bundle inside groaned and moved; the mattress crackled. The smell of exhaled wine was overwhelming. Robert reached out, found sleep-warm flesh, a sprawled arm that was half as thick again as the one he had grasped at the bottom of the stairs, a seeming century ago. 

‘Jesu,’ he whispered. He cleared his throat and said in his best moot-court voice, ‘I think there’s been a misunderst―’ 

The person produced a deep gurgle which ended in a bleary, but articulate, ‘Jane, that you?’ 

‘No―I mean, I’m sorry, there’s been a―’ 

‘God’s prick. Dozy tart might have told me I was sharing. Get in, won’t you? Draught’s wicked.’ 

The room span and the floor dropped out of it. It was the boy Jack, the arrogant, eloquent, maddening boy, and he’d just asked Robert to get into bed with him―albeit in the one way that precluded any satiation of desire―it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter― 

Robert remembered to breathe, and started to cough violently. 

‘Jesus Christ,’ Jack muttered, ‘tell me you’re not going to hack your lungs up all night. That would be the limit. Greasy old Mistress Otter gives me a bit of peace for once and I get a pestilence case for a bedfellow.’ 

‘I―no, look. Who’s Mistress Ot―oh―what were you expecting?’ 

‘God save us from the chatty ones,’ he grumbled, with no apparent sense of irony. His voice rose to the piercing clarity that had silenced the bar earlier. ‘Get in if you’re getting in, otherwise _piss off_. I’m trying, if you hadn’t noticed, to sleep.’ 

Robert saw no alternative but to obey―sharing with a boy you fancied was a reliable daydream, of course, but it was a dismal, nerve-wracking experience in reality. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed. He felt obscurely, superstitiously, that if he spent the night here he would never have anything he wished for, by which he supposed he meant he should never be loved. 

‘Get in, you whoreson dolt!’ Jack roared, and the connecting door flew open. Though the narrow doorframe was almost filled by Mistress Nightwork’s long, thin person, and she held only a single taper, Robert’s eyes dazzled; he pressed the heels of his hands to them. 

‘What’s going on here?’ she snapped, quite as if she didn’t know. Amid his confusion a small, professional part of Robert’s mind appreciatively registered her sang-froid: she’d make a formidable litigant. He dropped his hands and said, though he knew he had not, ‘I mistook the room―I’m sorry.’ 

‘Why, are you a paying guest―Master―Master―?’ She performed the small roll of the hand which means _never caught your name and never cared to_. 

‘No! Well, yes―I mean, you know I―’ 

She looked at him briefly, as if a joint-stool had answered her back, and addressed herself over his head. ‘Jack―really. It’s not on, you know. What if I let everyone bring in― _friends_ who don’t pay their way―it’s my livelihood, and me a soldier’s wife that might be a soldier’s widow already―’ 

Jack sat up. Robert gulped. He had never seen anything lovelier than that fine-drawn oval face, still a little soft with sleep, framed in love-locks that tumbled into the open neck of his shirt and nestled in the hollow behind his collarbone, and never anything more terrible than its being turned on him in puzzlement and disgust. 

‘This fellow? Never seen him b―’ Jack frowned. ‘I didn’t bring him. I thought you must have put him in here and forgotten to tell me.’ 

Robert found his voice sufficiently to say, ‘You―I mean we―I―you asked―you made an ass' ― _ignation_ caught in his throat, and he concluded feebly, ‘asked me.’ 

Now both of them were looking at him as if he were a pitiable madman. It sounded even to Robert’s own ears pathetically unlikely that the handsome, clever landlady of the Windmill, married to a captain of archers in King Edward’s army, paid fulsome court by her regulars, should want a tumble with a pigeon-toed, hollow-chested streak of Tewkesbury mustard like him. Maybe he had imagined it after all. 

‘Look,’ she said. ‘Either you pay for the room―in _cash_ , Jack, your tick is sucking my blood―or you get out, both of you. I’ve respectable gentlefolk―’ a snort from Jack, ‘who’ll take this room from under you―’ 

‘Jane, sweeting,’ he wheedled. He shoved Robert to one side and climbed out of bed, and advanced as if to embrace her. 

She turned aside. ‘Don’t _Jane sweeting_ me. Pay up, or clear off―’ 

He turned to Robert, who patted the purse he knew to contain three halfpennies and shook his head. 

‘Would you banish your own Jack, love? Banish your true Jack, your kind Jack, your sweet and valiant Jack? Send him into this night, this wet, cold and windy night, Lucy’s Eve, denying him your effulgence―’ 

‘Effulgence, my arse. Get lost.’ 

‘Charity, Jane―so close to Christmastide―where shall I go?’ 

‘By He who was born in a stable, you can sleep in one for a night. I’m sick of you. You’re a leech who cures nothing, your tongue drips honey and butters no parsnips―get dressed. I mean it this time―out, out,’ she emphasised her words with a shove to his shoulder, ‘or I’ll have Roger and Gib throw you out―and if I see you back here except with a purse of gold to pay your debts I’ll see you with a broken head and ribs and your bollocks kicked in so far your gluttonous belly won’t know what hit it―’ 

She strode, still talking, to the door through which Robert had entered, and opened it. The draught caused the other door to bang shut and snuffed her candle. All three of them started, and the two young men giggled. This, which might have restored a measure of amity, instead put Mistress Nightwork into a towering rage: Robert, in whom fascination had overcome most of the embarrassment and discomfort he felt, perceived suddenly that what had gone before was in the nature of a play, a private skit enacted at intervals for the perverse amusement of both parties. Now something had changed, not grown more earnest, but wilder, more dangerous. She shrieked like a harpy into the gloom, ‘Fuck off, Jack Falstaff, fuck off and die.’ She slammed the door, plunging them into pitch-black. 

‘Well,’ said Falstaff, with a sort of vocal flick of the wrist. ‘Allow me to introduce myself.’ 

Robert laughed. ‘Are you Sir John Falstaff’s son?’ 

‘The same.’ 

‘We’re neighbours, then, though I doubt you’ve heard of―Robert Shallow. Of the Tewkesbury Shallows.’ 

‘No. I don’t remember home very well. I’ve served Thomas Mowbray since I was six. Well, sort of. I’m―between appointments just now.’ 

Robert whistled. He’d heard of the hardier sort of boy being sent away at seven. But six still had milk in its mouth. 

‘The Gov’nor couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I was a shit-shotten imp out of the Devil’s own backside, he said, and I’ve spent the last twelve years assiduously proving him right. I say, Robert Shallow of the Tewkesbury Shallows, do you think our perfect gentle lady hostess meant it?’ 

‘Not until the last bit,’ he judged sagely, ‘but yes. I think _fuck off and die_ is definitive.’ 

‘Get us a light, then, Master Robert. She probably is coming back with Roger and Gib, and they are very scurvy unnegotiable knaves indeed.’ 

Trying to smell his way downstairs, Robert was lucky enough to run into the child Dickon, splitting his chaps with a yawn. He left his purse empty of all but a halfpenny on having his belongings brought upstairs and the loan of a lantern. 

‘Right then,’ Jack Falstaff said, completing a brisk toilette. ‘How do I look?’ He had replaced his brocade cotehardie with a plain grey-blue one, matched to ochre hosen. 

‘Gorgeous,’ said Robert sincerely, caught off guard. The upper portion of the beautiful face frowned, while the lower smiled. ‘But―but,’ he stammered, haven’t you a cloak?’ 

‘Some nice gentlemen with three balls are taking care of it for me.’ 

‘Oh. Here, have mine. I’ll wear this.’ 

‘What in the name of Our Blessed Mother is _that_? It looks like an orc ate a mermaid and coughed her back up.’ 

‘It’s part of my costume. For the Christmas revel, at Clement's Inn. I’m Sir Dagonet. It doesn’t look much, but it’s warm.’ Robert shrugged his gown over it. Two sets of heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. 

‘Christ’s teeth, a lawyer and a coward. Come on―through here―don’t let that lantern go out.’ 

They scrambled through Mistress Nightwork’s quarters―scrupulously-swept, almost austere―and down a cramped, crooked corridor. At the end of it, Jack peered around a corner. 

‘All right. Clear.’ A thump and a shout came from somewhere behind them, and they made haste along the gallery, down the stairs and along the passageway into the courtyard. The tapsters were clearing the bar and the grooms making safe the stables. 

‘Bugger it. The stables are out, then. Any ideas?’ 

‘Yes,’ said Robert proudly. ‘It’s not too salubrious, but―’ 

'Hang on.' Jack ducked back into the passage and re-emerged with the lantern that had hung over the courtyard door.

The night was clinging damp: too warm for snow, but hospitable to sleet and freezing mists. Proceeding uphill, they avoided getting lost in the latter, but the former soaked their hoods and boots before they reached their new lodgings. 

‘Everything but the ox,’ Jack said wonderingly, as the ass made itself apparent with a slumbering snort. ‘How’d you know about this place?’ 

‘We rehearse here. There’s nowhere to do it in Clement's that wouldn’t get you ragged to death. And we want it to be a surprise. I wrote a bit of it.’ 

Jack grinned. ‘I’d like to hear it. I like plays. I like plays better than anything. Could I come?’ Robert’s throat swelled; he thought he might actually choke if his heart didn’t explode first. 

‘It’s fusty stuff, really,’ he stammered. ‘Shop. Stupid lawyers' jokes.’ 

‘Oh. I daresay I wouldn’t understand it, then.’ Robert bit his tongue; he would have kicked himself if he could have done it unobserved. 

‘You all right? Haven’t got the shits, have you? Ma Nightwork isn’t too scrupulous about what she puts in that oyster stew―’ 

‘No―I’m fine.’ 

Jack gave his curious smiling frown again, unbuckled his scabbard and hung it on a nail in the wall. He bent to gather an armful of straw. ‘Right, Master Shallow, before we couch we need to build a couch.’ Robert smiled, amused by the brisk practical despatch characteristic of young men of Jack’s age and class; in a few years he would have lost it, grown used to ordering others about. But knightly training made temporary peasants of them. Before Robert could do much more than dither and balance the lanterns on a beam (one, already almost exhausted when Jack had taken it, promptly went out), Jack had constructed a sort of straw nest, palliasse and windbreak together, in the most sheltered corner not already occupied by a jealous ass. His sword hung against the wall above, both guard and threat. 

‘There. How’s that?’ 

It occurred to Robert to say something extravagant― _with you in it, it’s down and bridal linen and silk_ ―after all, it would be the truth. But the truth would land him with a split lip, or worse. 

‘Splendid.’ 

‘Well, go on. Get in.’ 

They looked at one another and began to wheeze with convulsive laughter. Jack pawed at Robert’s forearms in their absurd cladding of rough, knitted scales, and danced him to the bed of straw. They collapsed onto it, residually snorting, which turned to retching as they breathed its reek of dust, must and piss: but the nose accommodates itself quickly. Jack unfastened Robert’s cloak, rolled over to free the bit of it under him, and drew it over them both. 

‘If you were keener to hop into a man’s bed, you know, we’d still have a proper one.’ 

_Jesu._ Could he _mean_ that? Robert decided he couldn’t possibly. ‘We wouldn’t. She’d’ve kicked us out whatever happened.’ 

Jack wriggled backwards. ‘God’s wounds, straighten those skinny shanks of yours. That’s it. And stop _shivering_. It doesn’t actually help. Lawyers don’t sleep in barns much, I suppose. I say, don’t bunch up your gown like that. Give us a bit of it. It’ll be warmer in the long run.’ He manoeuvred himself into a position that might have been calculated to betray Robert’s desires―was it calculated?―were he not trembling and limp with cold fear. 

‘Now, Robert Shallow of the Tewkesbury Shallows. Under these conditions of fellowship in adversity, do you care to uncase your manly bosom and tell me what you were _really_ doing in my erstwhile bedchamber?’ 

Not having to look him in the eye made it easier to speak honestly, though as a pocket of slightly less frigid air developed between their bodies, Robert’s awareness that _that arse_ was half an inch from his thighs made it harder. ‘What―I said. Mis―Mistress Nightwork said I should come and―enjoy her. But she sent me to your room―I don’t know why―as a joke, I suppose. Though she didn’t seem to find it very funny.’ 

‘I think we missed our cues. Poor Jane.’ 

‘Poor Jane bollocks. Spiteful bitch, trying to make fools out of the both of us.’ 

‘I always feel sorry for the people I owe money to.’ 

‘I’ll remember that.’ 

‘Perhaps you even will, at that. You didn’t miss much. She’s like the goddess Diana. Fond of the chase, but cold as the moon―’ he lolloped onto his other side, dispersing the precious small warmth that had accrued. Perhaps his well-fleshed body just didn’t feel the cold. ‘Look at her there.’ 

Robert jumped, but saw he meant the moon, visible through a square gap under the rafters which must have been a window when the place was a mill, a slim haughty chit of a waxing crescent, wearing a gauzy veil. 

‘Not my sort of thing,’ he murmured. 

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Jack Falstaff, and kissed him tenderly, with closed mouth. ‘That do you better?’ 

Having drawn a long, cold breath as their lips parted, Robert was speechless for some moments. It seemed that the frigid, grimy air descended into his stomach and bowels and liver, that were fiery with lust, and set up a contention of the elements within him. ‘Jesu,’ he coughed. ‘What did you do that for―I mean, how did you know I―?’ 

‘I thought you might like it,’ Jack said simply. 

‘ _Like it_? Marry. Jesu. It’s―’ He drew a halting finger down the side of Jack’s face and along his jaw. In the guttering light, it looked like an allegory of Youth touched by the fleshless hand of Death. Robert flinched, and buried his fingers in bronze-coloured curls, pulling Jack’s lips back to his. This time his mouth opened: Robert tasted parsley and fennel mingled with the stale wine―he had tried to make his breath sweet for something, for _someone_ , someone who was not Robert Shallow, but there was no point in resenting that―and things grew rather fevered and approximate for a time. The remaining lantern-flame drowned itself in tallow. 

‘Christ―Jack, I’m sorry.’ 

‘Why? I meant you to. Perhaps not quite so quickl―I mean, I’d like to have made,’ an edge of swagger entered his voice, ‘more of a meal of it.’ 

‘You mean―’ This was the sin that invaded his thoughts most frequently, that he wanted more than the other perversions of lawful coitus (though he wanted those too) and so seemed proportionally the more degenerate. 

‘A dish of conger―’ he said fancifully, adding a compliment that Robert would come to learn wasn’t wholly outrageous: he really was well-hung, as Jack signally was not―but a small prick instantly became and remained his ideal, for Jack Falstaff's was small. 

Flattered and embarrassed, he enveloped Jack in moist, imprecise affection, with the result that the ideal was quite shortly in his mouth, and he had two handfuls of creamy, firm, marvellous arse. His shy refinements―circling his tongue, pressing his long thumb into the space behind Jack’s tight, neat ballsack―made the boy cry out roughly and begin to thrust. Robert felt his spending only as a sour hackle in his throat; he was not sure it had happened at all, but a small, enquiring drawing-in of his cheeks produced a gasp, and the muscles under his hands relaxed. He let Jack’s softening cock drop from his mouth and found himself overwhelmed by fathomless compassion, a helpless, irresistible impulse to embrace and protect. 

Gathering a sleepy Jack Falstaff and an intolerable deal of dirty, infested straw into his arms together, Robert thought _this must be how God feels, all the time_. The recollection of this insight was to bring him sleepless nights in much more comfortable surroundings, for it remained quite literally too impious for words, long after he had done penance for sins of the flesh somewhat hazily specified: the chaplain of Clement's Inn combined a shrewd knowledge of his flock with a horror of prurience. But as Robert fell into a chilly, restless doze, with his beloved, for whom nothing could ever be too good, clasped against his breast, the thought he would later recoil from as blasphemy seemed entirely beautiful. They slept unhearing as the bells of St George’s rang midnight. 

Robert woke aching and cramped, urgently needing to piss. He lay for a moment befuddled in utter darkness. He heard a fox bark far away, and rodent scurryings unsettlingly close to. It was still at least an hour before even the grey prelude to dawn. Scattered memories of the night before started to return. He could believe them dreams even though Jack Falstaff's bulk, wine-reeking and not-so-softly snoring, numbed his right arm more than the cold numbed his left. Being barred from the Windmill must be real enough, for here they were in a shed, but everything else: Jack's kiss, his quick practised hand working Robert's cock, his hoarse pleasure as Robert sucked him off, the smooth perfection of his glorious arse, all that was surely come through the gates of ivory. 

The pressure on his bladder became insupportable, worse than the dark and cold, even worse, he told himself sternly, than letting go of Jack. The barn door was not at all where he remembered it, and he made a din, provoking a shattering roar of protest from the ass. 

'Hullo, Robert.' The greeting had exactly the shy, casual tone characteristic of a new lover who is not sure of his reception in the morning. 

''Lo.' 

'I'm over here. Don't trouble Dobbin again, he doesn't like you. I do, though.' 

He found the improvised bed and crawled back under his cloak. Jack claimed him instantly, kissing his neck and jaw, slipping a busy hand beneath Sir Dagonet's mail and the skirt of Robert Shallow's doublet. Dizzy with felicity, Robert could have wept. Jack chuckled to feel Robert's prick stiffening under his hand. 

' _Lusty_ Shallow.' 

'I'll lusty you,' he replied fervently, pressing a kiss into Jack's hair. 'By the rood, the things I'd like to do―Jack?' 

'Mm?' 

'What are _you_ doing to do?' 

Jack tugged at the laces of Robert's codpiece. 'I was contemplating a flyting of tongues with this fucking great yard of yours, actually. Not a fair contest, but―' 

'I mean for lodgings.' 

'I was born under the Crab, therefore I bear my house on my back, and dabble―' 

'Oh, _Jesu_.' 

'Thought you might like that―dabble in the shallows.' 

'Merry ha ha. I mean―' 

'Hadn't really thought about it. Something'll turn up―matter of _fact_ ―' 

Jack ducked under the cloak. In a very few moments Robert found himself spent, quivering and limber. Jack nestled close and rested his head on Robert's chest. Robert tucked the covering solicitously about them both, though it didn't help much. 

'To answer your question, I suppose I'll have to shift my stamping ground―I shan't get credit anywhere in Southwark now. I suppose law students always have good credit, on account of their _prospects_ , don't they―' 

'Never really tried.' 

'Hm. That's no good. You need to get your face known, for credit.' 

‘There’s a man owes me twenty shillings. Well, he owes it to my father, but I could collect. He’s a sort of kinsman―very distant,’ he added airily, ashamed of his shame at his yeomanly origins. ‘My father lent it to him to rent an orchard from the Benedictines. I think he'd be good for ten, anyway. I―we could take a room, for a night or two―' 

'Wouldn't you get in trouble for sleeping out?' 

Robert considered this. He probably would face a fine. But no punishment short of Tyburn or Smithfield could be weighed in the balance against a night in a real bed with Jack Falstaff. 'No more for two nights than for one.' 

'We―ell―' 

'No, it's settled. I'll go up to Covent Garden at first light―God's bones.' _Scogan_. He had, in his delirium of joy, completely forgotten him. 

'What?' 

'I―I met a fellow in the bar last night. Just before I―went upstairs. He was in a dumps because some canting ruffian had accused him of bribe-taking and he'd called him out―Jack, my love, what is it?' He instantly regretted the endearment, a reaction to Jack’s violent start, but Jack seemed to accept it as his due. 

‘Christ―oh, mercy―oh, damnation.’ His voice was small and hollow. ‘There’s something you must know about me. I’m a very passionate man. When I take to someone―you, for example―I do so with a whole heart, and absolutely instantly.’ Robert swallowed hard and pulled him closer―that, surely, was almost, very nearly, an admission of love. ‘But it’s the same the other way. Sometimes I just take against, with equal fervour. Worse when I’m drunk, of course. It’s a very great fault in me―can you abide it, do you think?’ 

‘Oh, Jack, of course I can―I could abide anything you did―but you don’t mean to say that was you―’ Robert’s scalp prickled and his ears filled with the sound of a weir in spate. Jack must surely be able to hear his thunderous heartbeat. 

‘‘Fraid so. I’d hoped it had just been a bad dream. Robert, you don’t―hate me, do you?’ 

‘Marry, Christ, no―I lov―look here. He didn’t want to fight you. He only challenged you because he’d once been a poor man and these things are believed of those of humble birth, where they’re not of the great. You must beg his pardon, Jack.’ 

Jack immediately stiffened and sat up, inviting a blast of raw, damp air into the bed. 

‘My dear Shallow,’ he said sadly, as if he had received a very great disappointment, ‘I took you for a gentleman.’ 

Defying his father, Robert had once, when he was fourteen, gone to watch―only to watch―the Shrovetide football in Tewkesbury. It proved not to be a spectator sport, especially not for a clumsy youth who almost touched six foot but weighed less than a long hundredweight. He was carried along in the crowd until someone’s head cannoned into his belly and he was laid out, doubly lucky that the winding blow had thrown him out of the way of the mob, into a ditch which owing to recent fair weather was merely muddy. So he neither drowned nor was trampled, though he was very soundly beaten when he returned home. He felt now rather as he had when he had emerged from beneath his father’s birch: every breath such an agony that he did not even notice that tears were coursing in sheets down his cheeks. 

‘I daresay I misunderstood you,’ Jack continued, relenting. 

‘Yes,’ Robert hiccuped, becoming aware of his tears and trying to control them in the same breath. ‘I―was only saying what _I’d_ do, being closer in my estate to his―’ and then, he did not truly know from whence, but he offered his thanks and candles later to St George and the Virgin, hoping they’d pass them on if necessary, inspiration struck. ‘Jack―?’ 

‘Yes?’ 

‘Have you a second?’ 

A short silence revealed Jack Falstaff, for all his hauteur, as a somewhat inexperienced duellist. 

‘By God―yes, Robert, would you?’ 

‘Of course,’ he said, equilibrium restored. ‘Now, you must be well-rested. Sleep. I’ll watch until dawn.’ With Jack asleep in his arms, he felt calm and confident, liking the competent and debonair person he seemed in an instant to have become. At cockcrow, his stomach gave an enormous lurch. What, by all that was holy, did he think he was playing at, a Gloucestershire reeve’s son, seeking to intervene in and subvert a matter of honour between two men who, lowly as their respective positions might be there, knew the ways of the Court? But it was done. 

Dobbin set up a vasty racket in his corner: somebody would be coming to turn him out soon, or refill his net of hay. Robert shook Jack awake: blurred and yawning, with straw in his burnished hair and smudges on his cheeks and forehead, he was as lovely as Robert had yet seen him. But if all went well he should have him naked all that midwinter night; he should see the exact colour of his nipples and the head of his cock, see _that arse_ as well as feel it, perhaps even fuck it―some instinct told him that Jack would let him, not only let him but like it―he composed himself while he was still only half-hard. That simply _wouldn’t_ do, not now. 

‘Get yourself ready―I’m going to―talk to the other chap’s―’ This was not a lie, exactly, but it was difficult to say. He kissed Jack quickly on the brow, and strode off down towards the Windmill, hoping he would catch an early-rising chambermaid or groom by whom he could send a message. The lad that he found opening the back gates seemed to see at a narrow-eyed glance that he had spent the night engaging in sodomitical venery in an ass’s makeshift stable, but Robert's remaining halfpenny and a short wait brought Master Scogan, dressed and armed with sword and buckler, into the courtyard. 

‘Good morrow, Master Shallow. I shan’t ask you how you slept, it’s obvious,’ he said sympathetically. 

‘Likewise,’ Robert grinned ruefully. ‘But I might have good news. Happens I know my opposite number rather well―we grew up together―and I met with him coming here this morning. He’s of the mind Master Falstaff regrets his remarks and knows he took you up amiss, and were you not to be exactly insistent on the matter of _apology_ ―’ 

Scogan frowned. ‘I’m not sure I can accept less than a retraction―it was in public, you know. And young Falstaff has an exceedingly penetrating voice and a vivid turn of phrase.’ 

‘But,’ Robert said desperately, ‘did anyone of real importance witness―the parlour was quite empty, wasn’t it?’ 

‘Some aldermen. Servants, who are not negligible people where reputation is concerned, believe me. That’s not the point, though, is it? By the way, you sound anxious on behalf of my opponent, which isn’t quite the done thing, you know.’ Robert liked this man, and admired his wry courage. But Jack, well, Jack was Jack. 

‘Tell you what,’ said Scogan. ‘Get Falstaff’s second to come down here and deliver his message in person, and I’ll give it some thought.’ 

Robert’s guts dropped into his boots. ‘Ah. I’m not sure where―I mean, I don’t think that―’ 

Scogan looked at him steadily. Robert’s mind raced, but every avenue that it took ended in Jack turning resolutely from him, never to glance in his direction again. Except the one that ended in _Jack dead_ , at which his every atom revolted. Jack Falstaff couldn’t _die_. Scogan’s lips were twitching. 

‘Master Shallow, I trust that by the time you’re called to the bar you’ll have learned to think faster on your feet.’ 

Robert looked down at those attenuated, dampshod members. He rubbed the left against his right calf. He was trembling. Looking up again, he saw that so was Scogan, but with laughter. He reached out and squeezed Robert’s shoulder. ‘It does you credit, in my eyes, whatever the world might think. Kindness is better than honour, or rather, it’s the only real sort. And there’s no more chivalrous impulse than to preserve and protect. You’ll get better at playing people off against each other.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll have to.’ 

‘But how did you―?’ 

‘A word of advice to you. Assume everything you do is observed by someone, and be civil to the staff. Now, we have business in St George’s Field. Don’t worry. I know Jack Falstaff better than you do.’ Robert’s expression must have betrayed something, because Scogan tilted his head in the tolerant unsurprise of men who do not engage in philippics against sins to which they are not themselves tempted. ‘I’ve known him longer, let’s say.’ 

A rotund, black-clad man came hallooing across the courtyard. ‘Ah,’ said Scogan, ‘there’s Hugh Evans, to see fair play is done. He’s a priest, he’ll do for you, won’t he? And―Nick, the groom who brought your message, will hold my gown for sixpence. Go on, Shallow, see to your principal. We’ll follow you up.’ 

Jack was trying some passes on the patch of flat ground determined for the resolution of the quarrel. In another man Robert might have deprecated the style as savouring of the mountebank, but in Jack he saw only grace, fire and energy. 

‘They’re on their way, Jack. Kiss me before they come.’ 

‘I’ll kiss you better afterwards.’ 

Before Robert could insist, Scogan, the priest, and the groom came into view, dark shapes emerging from the early-morning mist. A heavy bank of cloud lay low in the eastern sky; before the sun that pinkened it showed his red face, a man might be dead. It might be Jack. A desolate, tingling cold that had nothing to do with the dank morning spread from the back of Robert’s neck, down his spine and legs. He had known Jack Falstaff less than a day, but he knew for certain he could not live a day longer without him. 

The priest was speaking to him. Robert saw him as if through a polished crystal, mouthing. He was Welsh and had his countrymen’s propensity to use many words. It was a bit like the language of the law, everything duplicate or triplicate, Robert thought fuzzily. He nodded, having no idea what he was agreeing to. Evans took Jack aside and spoke to him in low tones. Jack knelt and the priest sketched the sign of the cross above his head. Robert dismissed as discreditable his immediate fear, that Jack had confessed the activities of last night: there had not been time for much detail. Jack turned, and his face was grey and ordinary: before he could reproach himself for disloyalty, Robert thought how much of Jack's beauty was attributable to animation. He made a gesture of encouragement which he hoped was not as wan as the smile Jack returned to it. 

Scogan, seeing Jack had no buckler, discarded his. Robert caught Nick’s rather feline eye. It was a studiedly casual look of the sort which, in that faraway life before Jack, might have thrown him into some confusion. Now, a lover proved, he realised that the boy was merely trying to appear as if suddenly being removed from mucking out stables to witness single combat was something which happened to him really quite often. 

Then the time was come: the principals stood drawn, waiting the priest’s signal. 

‘―to see here enacted a rencounter in full accordance with the true disciplines of the monomachy, that is to say, the code duello, by which honour might be satisfied and satiated in sanguinary wise, and by the grace of God insult made reparation and right vindicated, which is the prerogative of gentle birth and Christian chivalry, which I will now description to you―’ 

Scogan cleared his throat, flexed his shoulders and made a single-handed wool-gathering motion. 

‘Ah, yes―well, it is vitiation to keep you in a suspense, so I will say no more now than that the sight of forgiveness is a good sight, and a holy, look you, that does heartily indemnify our weaknesses, and well it is said, see, that the archangel who has never felt wrath might envy the man who subdues it, and that when you forgive the man who had pierced your heart stands to you in the capacity and relation of a sea-worm―ah, the sea worm is an excellent moral, look you, that is perforate in the muscle and straightway closes the wound with a pearl, the pearl signifying forgiveness, see, which is another excellent moral, because the pearl is white, to signify to you that she is pure, and rolls, and rolls, and rolls to signify that she is―everywhere, because she is God’s―and―the short of it is, gentlemen, will you be concord, and harmony, and reconciliation?’ 

There was a long, clammy silence. Robert closed his eyes and bit his fist. A bloodcurdling wail split the air. Robert’s knees buckled―surely one of them had not been hurt in the first pass, without even as much as a chance to parry―surely it was not Jack― _could_ not be― 

He opened his eyes slowly and lowered his hand, the knuckles grazed and bleeding. Jack was on his knees in the frosty grass, his sword thrown aside, his arms thrown around Scogan’s thighs, clinging and clawing and sobbing. Robert caught the words _abuse_ , _forgive_ and (many times) _very, very drunk_. Scogan dropped his own weapon and cast about him in an agony of embarrassment; the priest peered at Jack as if remorse were a spectacle wholly new to him; the groom began to laugh, a creaky, unsteady sound like a bittern’s boom. 

‘For Christ’s sake, Shallow,’ Scogan snapped, ‘get your―get Ganymede here _off me_ , will you?’ 

Robert tottered forward. He crouched beside Jack and put a hand on his shoulder. 

‘Jack―it’s all right.’ 

Jack howled. ‘Besmirched, shent―can never,’ he gulped, ‘show my face again.’ 

‘Honestly―I don’t think it’s that bad. For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing. Honour’s a pretty damsel, but one to come upon with discretion, and dead men can have none of her. Master Scogan and Sir Hugh won’t―’ he looked up anxiously, ‘go telling tales, will you? and as for the boy Nick―’ 

Who, he saw, was already gone. Evans shuffled. ‘I think we can consider the matter a conclusion, look you.’ 

‘A life without without virtue―the name of coward―Oh God, no, there’s no good in me, I should be an antique Roman and fall―fall upon―’ Jack exclaimed, and scrabbled for Scogan’s sword. Scogan took his chance to escape his wild supplications and stepped back quickly, skidding on the thawing grass. Trying to prevent a pratfall, he threw himself forward, sprawling on top of Robert, for whom night descended, purple-black as bats’ wings, at sunrise on the shortest day of the year. 

He came round to the sight of three deformed, livid turnips bobbing above him, one dripping ichor, and gave a short yelp of alarm. 

‘Thank God, Robert, you’re alive.’ 

Robert felt that this was an excessively optimistic assertion. He took a snuffling breath to test it, and finding that an uncommonly painful but not impossible operation, turned his head aside, and spat out the clot, tasting of iron and earth, that had gathered in his throat. As he looked back again, the speaking face resolved into Jack’s, smiling tenderly. 

‘Thought you―were supposed to be killing―the other bloke,' Robert said thickly. He wagged his hand and giggled weakly, then put his hand to his face, which he was somewhat surprised to find still convex. It didn't feel that way. His fingers came back red-black. 

The face with a bloody egg on its brow said, ‘Master Falstaff has contrived to crack my head for me this morning, albeit by proxy, and against yours, but I fear you had much the worst of it, my brainpan being passing thick, as the clerks of Oxford never wasted an opportunity to inform me. How do you feel, Master Shallow?’ 

‘Fucking shit, thanks. How’re you?’ 

After they had got him to his feet and he had puked some bile, he felt a good deal better, and declared himself able to walk. Jack linked his right arm, and they proceeded downhill towards the street, Scogan on his other side and Evans twittering behind― 

‘I beg you take care, Master Robert Shallow, the solution of continuity called ecchymosis in Greek comes, look you, according to Master Galen, most often with a concussion and a ruption―’ 

‘I don’t,’ Robert said deliberately, ‘give a fig of Spain for your ecky-whatsits, sir. My head hurts very injuriously, and I'm pretty sure my nose is broken. The only possible thing for that is strong drink. I propose we all have a drink. Even you, Jack. You shall not be excused. No, you―’ he lurched, and Scogan steadied him, ‘―shall not be excused.’ 

Jack cheered and squeezed Robert’s arm in a most gratifying fashion. Scogan smiled and Evans fell into an affronted silence. ‘I think, though, that the Windmill mightn’t be the wisest place of resort,’ Scogan said. 

‘You’ve a point,’ Jack replied, ‘as wise Sir Hugh says, reconciliation is a pretty pearl, and I shall bestow none of mine on swinish goodwives.’ He squinted into the east. ‘What’s o’clock? Where’d be open?’ 

‘Do you ever ask the hour of day except to find a tavern to sit in? I know a place where we’d be sure to have a welcome, in fact, and a daybed for Master Shallow, but it’s across the river―still, he can have Barbara―’ 

Jack sniggered. ‘I’m not sure Robert’s is up to―’ Robert elbowed him savagely. ‘Wha―at? Insatiable,’ he said, winking. ‘The girls call him mad Shallow, Master Scogan.’ 

‘I’m sure I don’t want to know. But roan Barbara is my mare, and Master Shallow can ride her while we walk alongside, if that suits.’ 

It suited, and at the stables they took their leave of Hugh Evans. 

‘So the proud parson rode prancing away, and his palfrey was yclept High Dudgeon―’ Jack said musingly. 

Robert felt a sudden, inchoate sense of omission, akin to the _esprit d’escalier_ he felt equally and indiscriminately upon leaving lewd company and the confessional, and frowned. ‘Jack, didn’t I have something to do this morning? _Apart_ from―’ 

‘God’s teeth. Your cousin who was to―ah, provide liquidity.’ 

‘I have a matter to transact at Covent Garden, Master Scogan―can I catch you up?’ 

‘Absolutely not. I won’t hear of it. I feel rather responsible for your injury, even though―’ he looked significantly at an oblivious Jack Falstaff. ‘You must clean your face, reset your nose, count your teeth, and rest. A night in a deep feather bed will do more good than a week on a board in whatever reeking dormitories you students inhabit―I’ve been a poor scholar myself, I know well enough. I’ll set you up with a room at the inn, and when my servant’s caught up with me―he’s coming here, but I’ll leave word I’ve moved on―I’ll send him with a message to your kinsman―how should he know him?’ 

‘He’s an―ah―market gardener―has an orchard hard by the convent wall―name’s Stockfish―Samson Stockfish―’ Robert tittered idiotically. ‘Missed his trade.’ 

The groom―not Nick, fortunately―brought Barbara around. Robert clambered unhandily on to her back. 

‘Where’s this place we going to, anyway, Harry?’ asked Jack. 

‘Oh―didn’t I say? Eastcheap―the inn’s comfortable, nothing fancy, nice and cosy, but in rather an unpromising district full of butchers’ shops―that’s why it’s called the Boar’s Head, I suppose―ready, Shallow?’ 

Barbara had a brisk trotting gait, which rattled Robert’s brain in his aching head. Scogan, though vigorous for his age, soon dropped some yards behind, but Jack kept pace with the mare’s head. As they jogged up a London Road slowly waking to lazy winter business, he grinned up at Robert with an insouciance absurd, dazzling and provocative. Robert’s heart swelled to bursting: Jack Falstaff was to be his in a feather bed, and if it were only for one night, it was nonetheless the year’s longest. 

‘Come on, hem, boys, come on!’ he cried. ‘Hem, boys!’ 

‘Hem, boys!’ Jack panted, ‘Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold!’ 

It was going to be, Robert thought fondly―and the phrase had a familiar ring, though he couldn’t quite place it― _the beginning of a beautiful friendship_.

**Author's Note:**

> Between Shallow's faulty or exaggerated memories, the telescoped timelines of the _Henry IV_ plays, and Shakespeare's tendency to give the non-aristocratic characters in the histories the manners and material culture of the 1590s rather than the 1400s, I gave up on any idea of historical precision. This fic is nominally set Sometime in the Reign of Edward III, and really in the timeless world of binge-drinking and scrape-escaping that Falstaff immortally inhabits. I've noted some of my more flagrant anachronisms below, for others which have slipped my notice I beg the reader's pardon.
> 
> George Barr: Q: George Barnes, F: George Bare. I've gone for a compromise in the interest of punz.
> 
> 'I’m weary with hunting and fain would lie down, as the good old ballad has it': that is, Lord Randall (Child 12). Anachronistic by approx. 400 years.
> 
> 'Dans le mitan du lit, la rivière est profonde': from 'Au marches du palais', a charming French lullaby about love across the class barricades resulting in a _folie à deux_ suicide pact (suitable for ages 24 mnths+) but also anachronistic, not attested before the 18th century.
> 
> 'Si secundum hominem ad bestias pugnavi Ephesi, quid mihi prodest, si mortui non resurgunt? Manducemus, et bibamus, cras enim moriemur.' 1 Corinthians 15:32: 'If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.' (KJV). Robert replies with the opening lines of the next verse, 'do not be deceived', punning on the sexual sense of 'seduce.'
> 
> Henry Scogan: Shakespeare conflated two historical figures called Scogan or Scoggin: Henry, a poet and contemporary of Chaucer, and John, a scholar who played the buffoon for Edward IV and became a figure of legend whose exploits were recorded in 16th and 17th century jestbooks. My Scogan is a bit more Henry than John. Shallow remembers Falstaff breaking Scogan's head 'at the court-gate,' but after all, old men are subject to the vice of lying.
> 
> Hugh Evans' metaphor of the sea-worm's pearl is nabbed from an 18th-century text on duelling manners, otherwise, little attention has been paid to the rules thereof, medieval, Renaissance or other: I think we can count on these blokes to do everything wrong.


End file.
